


and made of one another

by missbecky



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: 5+1 Things, Background Daniel Jackson/Vala Mal Doran - Freeform, F/M, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 14:39:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13859841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missbecky/pseuds/missbecky
Summary: Five things only Sam knows about Cam, and one thing about herself she is the last to know. Or rather, the second to last.





	and made of one another

**Author's Note:**

> With many thanks to [Winterstar](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar/works) and [potentiality_26](http://archiveofourown.org/users/potentiality_26/pseuds/potentiality_26/works%22) for letting me talk to them about this fic, and offering feedback and encouragement.
> 
> The title comes from the poem "The Dissolution" by John Donne: 
> 
> _and we were mutual elements to us_  
>  _and made of one another_

_Earth_

 

It's a cold February afternoon when her phone rings. She’s been at the Pentagon since 0700 and though she could probably use the break, she's really on a roll right now; the interruption can't have come at a worse time. So she's not in the best mood when she answers. "Sam Carter."

"Sam." The voice on the other end is instantly familiar. "How are you?"

At once her exasperation drains away. She smiles, turning her back on her computer. "Cam! How are you?"

"So I happen to be in the neighborhood," Cam says, far too casually. "Thought we could get together for drinks?"

It's been close to a year since their paths last crossed; Cam was on his way overseas then, but he had a long enough layover that she was able to meet him at Dulles for lunch. It'll be nice to see him again and get caught up with what's happening in their lives.

"How long have you got?" she asks, remembering the restaurant in the airport, the overly inflated menu prices, the suitcases sitting next to people's tables.

"They're saying two to six months," Cam says and damn him she can hear the smug smile in his voice.

"You've been posted to Andrews!" she accuses, though she's not angry. Far from it; she's thrilled at the thought of getting to see her friend again — and for more than three hours this time. "When were you planning to tell me?"

Cam laughs. "I just got here this morning. So how would you like to show me around?"

Sam smiles. "I'd love to."

****

He's been assigned to temporary guest quarters on base; Sam finds his new home easily enough and arrives right on time. She knocks and almost right away Cam is there, opening the door with an easy grin. " _Captain_ Carter."

She grins back. " _Captain_ Mitchell." She earned her captain's bars a whole month before he did, and they've joked about it ever since.

"What's that?" He gestures to the thing she's holding.

"It's a gift." Sam holds up the potted plant. "You know, for housewarming."

Cam laughs as he holds the door open so she can come in. "You know I'm only here for a few months, right?"

"Long enough," Sam says. She's particularly proud of the jaunty little bow she tied about the pot.

Cam closes the door and Sam hugs him. She's only got one arm free, but it's enough. Cam hugs her close with both arms, and she thinks for probably the hundredth time that she's so grateful they've never been anything more than friends. If anything awkward were to happen between them, she's not sure she could bear to give up the easiest friendship she's ever had.

"You want anything?" Cam asks.

"No, thanks." The plan for tonight is to go out to dinner. If they start talking now, trying to catch up on months of news, they won't even get to the restaurant for hours. And she's hungry. "Here."

Cam takes the plant gingerly, like it's dangerous. His exaggerated care makes Sam shake her head and laugh. "So what are you going to call it?"

Cam shoots her a look as he puts the plant on the counter dividing the living room from the kitchen. "Call it?"

"Sure," Sam says. She talks to her plants. She always has. It makes them grow so much better.

Like usual Cam doesn't argue; he just goes with it. She's never known anyone so easygoing before. "Okay, how about Seymour? You know, from _Little Shop of Horrors_?"

It's perfect, and Sam tells him so.

****

For the next couple months whenever they talk, she asks after Seymour. Cam always replies that the little plant is doing fine and it hasn't eaten anyone yet, and it becomes something of an inside joke between them.

Until she comes over the last night Cam is in town before shipping out to a destination he can't tell her about. She looks around the nearly-empty living room, but she doesn't see Seymour anywhere.

"All right, all right," Cam says with a theatrical groan. "You got me. I should've known better than to try lying to you. I accidentally killed Seymour."

Sam can't decide if she's amused or insulted. "What? How did you manage that?"

"I’m sorry, Sam." He looks sheepish. "I don't know what I did, but somehow I killed it."

Poor little Seymour with his jaunty bow. "It's okay," Sam says. "You'll just have to try again."

Cam looks skeptical, but he nods.

****

Over the years his track record does not get any better. He kills ferns, begonias, a beautiful lily. Sam makes Major and makes up with her dad. Cam makes Major and kills an aloe plant. She brings a fiddle-leaf fig to his hospital room to brighten an otherwise gloomy space. Cam defies the odds and walks out of there but the fig does not.

When she leaves Area 51 and returns to Colorado Springs and SG-1 she gives him a cactus. "Even you can't kill this."

Cam just shakes his head, but as always he indulges her. The cactus is named Bob and set on the end table in his quarters at the Mountain.

Three months later Bob is given a ceremonial burial and Sam officially gives up. "There's no help for you,” she says as she sits back on her heels, trowel in hand, dirt under her fingernails. "You've got a black thumb. No more plants for you."

"Finally," Cam says with relief.

"You're not allowed to get near any of my plants," Sam says. Not that she has any yet. Her house was occupied by a renter while she was in Nevada, and she's still in the process of moving everything back in. There hasn't been time to visit a nursery.

But there's no time like the present. They aren't scheduled to travel to P6G-325 until tomorrow morning. They might as well go shopping now. There's no telling when they'll get another chance, especially not when every day seems to bring more bad news about the Ori.

She rubs the dirt off her hands and stands up. "Come on."

Cam squints up at the afternoon sun, then looks back down at her. "Where are we going?"

****

They end up at the nursery where she's always bought her plants. She fills a cart, taking her time, making the right choices. She picks plants not just for what they can give her, but for what she sometimes can't give them in return, choosing ones that are hardy and able to withstand some benign neglect.

The last item she lays in the cart is an African violet. "This one is for you."

Cam groans. "Sam, no."

"But you don't get to keep it," she says. "It'll stay with me."

"Our dirty little secret?" he says with an exaggerated waggle of his eyebrows.

She just laughs. "Something like that. Now, you know the drill. Give it a name."

Cam sort of rolls his eyes, but he dutifully obliges. "Hello there, Minnie."

"As in Mouse?" Sam asks.

"As in Pearl," Cam says, and really she ought to have known that.

She takes Minnie home with the rest of her plants, and talks to her the same as all the others. Cam keeps his distance when he visits, but he always gives the violet a cheery little wave.

All her plants do well, which is no more than she expected, but that little violet named Minnie absolutely flourishes.

********

_Fire_

 

"We have got the best jobs in the world, don't we?" Cam says with satisfaction.

Normally Sam would agree. But she's dirty, tired, bruised, and frankly in no mood for it today. "I'm going to hit the shower," she says.

Daniel sounds just as aggrieved. "I'm going to find the doctor."

She's already walking away, so she can barely hear Teal'c as he agrees, "Indeed we are suitably employed." All she can think about is a hot shower.

She spends longer than usual under the hot water, groaning in quiet contentment as she finally gets to wash her hair. When she's cleaned up she makes the obligatory stop in the infirmary, letting Dr. Lam check her out and scowl at the marks on her face where Worrel hit her. She's released quickly enough, and she hurries through the halls, heading for her lab. She's got a new idea about the project they've already started calling the "anti-Prior device." She really wants to test it out before she has to be back in the conference room for the debrief with General Landry. 

She barely has time to fire up her laptop when there is a knock on her door. She glances up and sees Cam standing there.

He walk in a few steps without being invited. "You okay?" he asks. "Those Lucian Alliance guys didn't exactly pull any of their punches." 

"I'm fine," Sam says. She's a little banged up, but it's no big deal. Dr. Lam recommended rest and some ice, nothing she's not used to.

"Good," Cam says. "Just checking. Gotta be ready for the next mission, you know." He gives her a smile and thumps the doorframe with a quick one-two drumbeat as he backs away.

"I don't get it," Sam says.

Cam pauses, half in the hall, half in her lab. "Get what?" he says slowly.

"You," she says honestly. "How are you always so enthusiastic about all this?" She shakes her head. "I mean, I realize I've been doing this a lot longer and it's easier to get jaded about it all, but…" She gives him a somewhat baffled look. "How do you stay so fired up all the time?"

It's not really a fair question. She's known Cam longer than anyone at the SGC. His relentlessly upbeat nature has alternately been one of her greatest comforts, and one of the most aggravating things about him. Few things ever get him down for long, both literally and metaphorically. Even if he wasn't new to the team, seeing all this for the first time, he would still be this way, looking forward to each new mission.

In a way he reminds her of Daniel, both of them sharing a passion for what they're doing. In Daniel's case, time and circumstances have dulled the edge of his excitable nature, though she does still see flashes of it from time to time, and certainly more often when Vala was around. But with Cam, nothing will diminish his enthusiasm, not the teasing from others or the passage of time. Ten years from now if he's still doing this, he'll still greet each trip through the gate with the same warm welcome.

He walks into her lab now, a bit slowly, giving her question the gravity it requires. "I guess I don't think about it," he says. "It's just who I am."

"I know," she says. "Believe me, I know." For a moment they share a look, years of history behind it. "I just…"

"Sam." Cam exhales and drops his head, looking down. When he looks up again, he's as serious as she's ever seen him. "When I was in the hospital, a lot of people brought me things. Some of them were thoughtful, some were just plain stupid. And one day my mom brought me a brochure for a community college."

She didn't expect that. But she's not really surprised. She's met his parents on a couple occasions, going all the way back to when they were in the Academy. If her dad was out of the country for the holidays, various friends would invite her to stay with them so she wouldn't have to be alone. She spent two Christmases with the Mitchells, and she still remembers the way the rafters in the attic guest room slanted downward, the way the bed was covered in a quilt patterned in pastel flowers.

"She told me there were still all kinds of things I could do," Cam says. "Being in a wheelchair wouldn't change that. She gave me the brochure and said I should find something I wanted to do with my life and pursue it."

Sam doesn't know what to say. She feels like she should apologize, maybe. But that doesn't feel right, so she says nothing.

"It's good advice," Cam says. "And she's absolutely right. Being in that chair wouldn't have changed anything. But she completely ignored everything _I_ was saying. I never had any intention of doing anything except walking out of there and staying in the Air Force."

Sam nods. She knows perfectly well that even the best of intentions and strongest of wills isn't always enough. Fortunately for Cam, in his case, it worked.

"Anyway," Cam says, and his tone starts to lighten. "Whenever I get discouraged, I just think of that damn brochure. It kinda puts things in perspective." He gives her a tight smile, the kind that looks more like a pained wince.

"I didn't know," Sam says. She wonders if he ever showed anyone that brochure.

"Yeah, well," Cam says. He shrugs a little; they don't ever talk about those days, when she would visit him if her schedule permitted (mostly it didn't), when he would fill her in on his latest progress and she would tell him what she could about her life. Once he got the proper clearance, they were able to talk about the Stargate program a little, though not often and always in hushed tones in case a nurse walked in and heard something they weren't supposed to hear.

"Do you still have it?" she asks.

"Actually, I do," Cam says.

Somehow she's not surprised.

"You should bring it in," she says. Off Cam's rather bewildered look, she adds, "I'd like to see it."

Cam shrugs again, far too casual. "Sure. But I gotta warn you, it's probably not gonna win any Pulitzer Prizes for Literature."

"That's okay," Sam says. She's not interested in reading it, anyway.

"Okay then," Cam says. "In the meantime, might I interest you in our debriefing with General Landry?"

They head for the briefing room. Sam starts to go over the facts of the mission in her head, and their conversation is pushed to the back of her mind, all but forgotten. Right now she's got other things to worry about.

****

It's three days later when Cam shows up in her lab, pulling her attention away from the anti-Prior device. It's late and she hasn't eaten in hours, but she doesn't want to stop just yet; it's lonely in the mess eating by herself. Teal'c is offworld, responding to a Jaffa request to help search through a stockpile of old Goa'uld tech they found on Dakara. Daniel is around somewhere, in theory, though she suspects he's holed up in his office, probably hunched over some Ancient writing.

She looks up as Cam walks in. "Hey."

"As you requested." He holds something out to her.

Sam takes it without thinking. It's not until she's holding it that she realizes what it is.

This is the advertisement for the community college. This is what Cam's mom brought him in the hospital when no one but Cam himself believed he would ever walk again.

The brochure is a glossy trifold; the front image is a tasteful red brick building with some happy young people walking up the steps, eager to start learning something. She had expected it to be dog-eared, a little bit worn, the folds starting to fray a bit, evidence of how often it's been read. Instead she's surprised to discover the paper is as crisp as it must have been on the day it was printed.

"You've never read it," Sam says.

"Nope," Cam says. He folds his arms.

"Good," Sam says. She doesn't know why that should please her so much, but it does. A lot.

Still holding the brochure, she walks down to the far end of her lab, where she has some chemistry equipment. It's not much -– there are other, larger labs she can use if she really needs to delve into an experiment -– but it's got what she needs.

Set atop the counter is a slim silver device, its barrel rising several inches above the table. Working with quick efficiency, she connects the hose, closes the air inlet and the valve. She reaches over and turns on the gas, and Cam says, "Uh, Sam? Whatcha doing?"

"Come on," she says with a teasing grin. "It hasn't been _that_ long since you were in chemistry class."

"Long enough," Cam says. He looks a little bit wary, a little bit intrigued. He must surely know what she's intending, but he makes no move to stop her, which is all the permission she needs.

She opens the valve of the Bunsen burner and picks up the flint that sits nearby. She holds it out. "Care to do the honors, Colonel?"

Cam looks at the flint, at the Bunsen burner, then at her. A slow smile spreads across his face. "Why, thank you, Colonel."

It takes him a few tries to light the flame; he's a bit skittish of the sparks and stands too far away at first. But at last he gets it just right, and the Bunsen burner whooshes alight with a pillar of flame.

Sam hands him the community college brochure. She wonders where he's kept it all this time, if he ever takes it out to look at when the stress of their job starts to be too overwhelming. Maybe it's enough just to have it. Maybe just knowing it's there is enough to stiffen his spine and give him the motivation to go on.

The glossy paper takes a little while to catch on fire. Once it gets going, though, it burns brightly. Sam closes the valve and turns off the Bunsen burner, so the fire from the brochure is the only source of flame in the lab.

Cam holds it as long as he can, then drops it in the sink. They watch the last of the paper wither and go up in flame, and then it's gone, a little pile of ash and some nasty-smelling fumes all that's left.

"That's it?" Cam says.

"That's it," Sam says. She disconnects the hose to the gas line.

They stand there together, gazing down at the sad bit of ash in the sink. Sam has no clue what he's thinking, or if she's even done the right thing. Maybe her grand gesture will turn out to be a bad idea.

They look up at the same time, the moment of quiet over with. "Don't tell my mom," Cam says. He sounds serious, but there is laughter in his eyes. 

Sam draws an X across her chest. "Cross my heart."

"That was a lot more satisfying than I thought it would be," Cam says. "Wish I'd thought of it."

"That's what you've got me for," Sam says.

Cam kind of tilts his head, his gaze becoming more appraising. She's not entirely comfortable under that stare -- though she doesn't know why -- so she says the one thing guaranteed to get them both out of here. "Why don't we go to the mess? It's blue Jello day."

For an instant Cam still looks at her intently, the way he does when he's puzzling something out. Or like he's never seen her before.

Then he drops his gaze and shakes his head in amusement. "What is it with you and that stuff?"

Sam shrugs. "I don't know. It's good. I like it."

"We better go then," Cam says. "Wouldn't want to stand between you and the blue Jello."

"You better not," Sam says in mock warning as they start toward the door.

Neither one of them looks back at the ashes in the sink. She turns the lights off as they leave the lab, and Cam closes the door behind them.

********

_Air_

 

It could have been weird, coming back to the SGC after commanding the Atlantis expedition for a year, but it's really not. It's almost like she never left, the way she feels so swiftly at home again. Like this is where she belongs.

General Landry offers her a choice of commanding any SG unit she wants, but she declines. She's had enough of paperwork and administrative headaches. She wants to be back here doing science again, something there was never time for in Atlantis. She tells General Landry she would like her old position back on SG-1, sir, and though he gives her a long look, he grants her wish.

A lot has happened in the year she was gone. There isn't much time to get caught up, though, before they are sent off on their first mission. Together they deal with Ba'al and the timeline he fucked up, and before Sam knows it, things are back to normal again. As normal as they ever get, of course.

SG-1 goes offworld a few times. Nothing terribly exciting happens, though Daniel does end up with a new archaeologist friend on P2F-654. Teal’c brings more Goa’uld tech back with him, though Sam has barely had a chance to study the previous items he gave her. She misses Teal’c being there all the time, misses those days when he was a stalwart friend at her side. She understands that his priorities have shifted in recent times, but she still misses him.

She and Vala go out a few times. They go shopping, to the movies, to have pedicures. Vala missed her a lot while she was in the Pegasus galaxy, something Sam already knew from the copious e-mails she received. She missed Vala too, the company of someone who understands what it's like to be a woman in this mostly male-dominated world of theirs. Someone who can talk to her freely about things.

Daniel is still there for her, in his usual distracted way. He's almost always in Vala's company these days; something must have happened during the year Sam was gone, because nowadays being around Vala brings out Daniel's bright smile more and more often. She's thrilled for them both, and hopes that they can make it work.

And then there's Cam. Still first to have her back, first to defend her theories to anyone who seems skeptical, even when he doesn't quite understand them himself. He takes her out for breakfast, shows off the car he's restoring (another old Mustang; he laughs when she says he has a type but doesn't deny it), and forbids her to ever go back to Atlantis on pain of being disowned. Sam smiles and says she wouldn't dream of it.

So she settles back into the rhythm of life at Cheyenne Mountain.

****

She's been back for about a month when an airman stops her in the hall on her way to her lab. She's just left the mess and she just wants to check on one of her current projects before going home for the night. The airman looks almost nervous as he hands her the envelope, offering a tentative smile and a bob of his head before hurrying off. Sam watches him go and wonders how long he's been here and when did the new kids start actually looking like kids.

Once she's in her lab she shuts the door and opens the envelope. Among several other reports is the one thing she's been waiting for: a list from Colonel Martinez at Nellis with the names of the test pilots who have volunteered for the first flight of the F-308.

Sam is excited for it. The inevitable successor to the 302, the 308 has greatly expanded capabilities, having the newest alien tech integrated into its core. She plans to be there for the first test flights, the way she was with the 302s, recording and observing – and a part of her wishing that she could be up there, too.

The list from Colonel Martinez is not long; the 308 program is still shrouded in secrecy. She scans the names and her heart jolts as one immediately jumps off the page.

She sighs. This isn't going to be easy.

****

She waits until the next evening, after SG-8 has returned from their latest mission and the ebb and flow of activity in the base has slowed down. Vala and Daniel are out for the night, a long-awaited date Vala had told Sam about; Sam had smiled to hear it and wished them both luck. Teal'c is meditating, so there is no danger of him accidentally coming by and overhearing the conversation she is about to have.

It's a testament to how much of their lives they spend under the Mountain that even at this late hour, Cam is still here. She finds him in his tiny office, tapping away at his laptop with the dogged persistence of the hunt-and-peck typist. He glances up when she knocks, and immediately his somewhat annoyed expression turns into a genuine smile. "Hey, Sam."

"Hey," she says. She makes a gesture with the hand not holding Colonel Martinez's list. "Got a sec?"

"Sure," Cam says. He pushes the laptop to one side as she comes in and closes the door behind her.

Instantly Cam is more at attention, aware that the closed door is significant. His eyes jump to the paper in her hand, although of course he can't read it from his vantage point. He doesn't ask, though, just waits for her to sit down.

She gets right to it. "I got the list of test pilot candidates for the 308s today."

Cam kind of freezes in place; he's busted and he knows it.

"You know I can't let you," Sam says gently.

"Sure you can," Cam says. "You're the program administrator." He sounds casual enough but she knows perfectly well that he is far from casual about this. Very far.

"I am," Sam says, "and you know what that means. I'm going to have to reject your application."

"Why?" Cam insists. Real anger flashes in his eyes.

At times like this she's grateful for their equal rank, for the fact that she doesn't have to couch all this in "sirs" and cautious language. The delicacy required of her now is to soothe hurt feelings and preserve a long friendship, not her career.

She rattles the paper. "I know this is hard for us to accept, but being a test pilot is a young person's job." She ignores the way Cam winces at that and keeps going. "And your job is here now, at the SGC. What if something were to happen?" That, though, is a weak argument and she knows it. Anything could happen to any one of them, at any time, on any mission, on any world. If the risk of danger kept them from doing something, they would never try anything.

She could go on, but Cam saves her the trouble. "Don't you miss it?" he demands. "Don't you want to be up there?" He gestures to the ceiling, toward a sky they often don't see for days at a time, living deep within the Mountain.

"You know I do," Sam says. Flying has always been one of her biggest joys. She loves being high above the earth, an enormously complex and expensive machine responding to her control. She loves the thrill of speed, of pushing the needle. It's why she got a motorcycle, why she was so eager to join the space race on Hebridan. It's why rush hour is the bane of her existence, why her personal idea of hell is being stuck in traffic because one lane ahead is closed for construction.

She remembers all too well her jealousy at hearing that Teal'c would be the one to pilot the new 301, how she had internally chafed at being relegated to "Flight." Not even the terrible fate Teal'c and General O'Neill had narrowly avoided had done much to diminish those feelings.

And when they flew the 302 into Anubis’s ship, it was General O’Neill at the stick, a sore point that had inevitably come up at that first briefing with the pilots at the SGC. She remembers that briefing vividly, and not just because Cam had been there on his first ever visit to the Mountain. They had hoped to do lunch that day, but that never happened. Instead she had been kept busy trying to figure out why the General was suddenly a 15-year old boy.

Still, she remembers some of the pilots’ skepticism at learning she was holding the briefing. She remembers her envy of them all, and how a part of her had wished she was one of them. It had gotten even worse once the 302's were actually going up on those initial test flights, having to hear the reports from the individual pilots, including Cam himself. She had read those e-mails with satisfaction, but never without clenching her jaw in frustration, too.

Some things just really suck.

"I miss flying and I always will. But I can't go back there. And neither can you." _It's just not possible,_ she could tell him, but she knows better. Cameron Mitchell never met an _impossible_ he didn't immediately leap to take on.

Besides, the truth is rather plainer, if much harder to say. "That's not our job anymore."

"I don't want to be flying a desk the rest of my life, Sam," Cam says fiercely. He's not giving in gracefully. Not that she expected anything less.

"And you think I do?" she fires back. She gave up her wings sooner than he did, spending precious early years at the Pentagon studying wormholes and working to get the Stargate program up and running. He was already older than most when the 302 program started, when the battle over Antarctica happened. But that is how it is. Time is a forward-moving arrow and nothing can change that.

"Besides, we still get to fly," she says. Cam gets the chance more often than she does, leaping for any opportunity that puts him back in the 302. She knows why, of course, the same way she knows she's got to get up there again soon, otherwise her last flight will be that baby-sitting duty for Alec Colson. And that's just unacceptable.

Cam's jaw tightens and he does that slow head tilt that means he's upset but trying not to let on just how much. Sam says nothing as he stares sullenly at the corner of his desk, giving him time to accept the inevitable, while remembering the crush of g-forces and the scream of engines, blue sky filling her world.

"All right," Cam finally sighs. He shakes his head, resigned to it now. "Take my name off the list."

She'll e-mail Colonel Martinez and tell him to revise his list, maybe include an explanation that it was just an inside joke, Colonel Mitchell never really intended it to be for real. Though maybe not -- Martinez is a good officer but he doesn't have much of a sense of humor. 

She won't tell anyone else. No one else needs to know.

"Come on," she says. She stands up. "Why don't we go get some ice cream?"

Cam looks at her like she's suddenly grown two heads. "What?"

She has no idea, doesn't know why it suddenly popped into her head. But now that she's said it, she really does want ice cream. "There's a fudge shop I know, they make their own ice cream." She's gone there with Vala before, listening to endless speeches on Daniel's many virtues, while patiently resisting Vala's attempts at setting her up with potential boyfriends chosen from among the staff at the SGC.

"Only if you're buying," Cam says as he stands up. Already he's forgiven her, his natural tendency toward optimism reasserting itself. "You owe me, after dashing my dreams." He smiles as he says it though, that somewhat goofy grin that stopped being able to charm her when they'd known each other for all of two months.

"For that you can have a hot fudge sundae," Sam says with a smirk.

"With a cherry on top?" Cam says.

Sam just laughs. "Of course."

*********

_Water_

 

The moment they arrive at the alpha site, Sam knows something is wrong. There's nothing overtly different about the situation: Colonel Patel is there to greet them, the airmen stand guard as always, the place hums with activity. All the same, she is uneasy.

Five minutes later they are en route to the briefing room, surrounded by airmen in camouflage. Without warning, Teal'c suddenly whirls around and strikes the young woman who has been following close behind him. The syringe goes flying from her hand and she is knocked into the wall.

Before anyone can do more than utter a shocked gasp, the airman falls to the floor. Not a human woman with short dark hair, but an alien with greenish-gray skin and a face full of hatred.

 _Foothold!_ Sam's mind screams, and then she realizes how _close_ another one of them is, one hand upraised and holding a needle, and she's suddenly fighting not just for her life, but for her entire planet.

It's messy and it's brutal. During the fighting that ensues, SG-1 gets separated, though Sam does eventually meet up first with Daniel, then with Teal'c. After the obligatory delay while they ascertain they each are who they say they are and not some alien wearing their face, they combine forces, and then shit really gets done.

Afterward, when the aliens are dead, they attempt to regroup. With Sam in the lead, her little team of three encounters Vala in hiding near the gate, a zat in each hand, ready to defend it should any aliens try to go through it to Earth. She eyes them all warily at first. "How do I know it's really you?"

"Last night I promised you I would take you skiing one day, though I'm still trying to figure out why I said that," Daniel says.

Vala smiles and lowers her weapons. "And I'm going to hold you to that promise," she says archly.

Sam orders Teal'c to contact General Landry and let him know the situation here. She tells Daniel and Vala to go through the base and make sure there are no aliens in hiding, now that they know what to look for. Then she goes in search of Cam.

She finds him outside, by the 302s, a lone defense against any alien who tried to steal one of the aircraft in order to escape. The light outside is failing as the sun sets on this planet, but it's more than enough for her to see how still he lies on the ground -- and the blood on his face.

"Oh my God, Cam." She runs forward, reaching for her radio and calling out a set of orders.

Cam pries open one eye. "Hey."

"What happened?" she demands as she drops to one knee beside him. "And _don't_ tell me 'you should see the other guy.'"

"Nah," Cam says. He gives her a weak smile. "I kinda blew him up. Her? I couldn't tell."

There is indeed a ring of charred ash on the ground nearby. Sam stares at it for a moment, wondering what the hell happened out here. Then she turns back to Cam with a wince; she can barely stand to look at him, there is so much blood.

The med team here will have their hands full dealing with the men and women who were injured when the aliens took over. And Sam can't wait for them. _Cam_ can't wait for them.

She thumbs her radio. "Teal'c?"

"I am here," he replies.

"Let General Landry know I'm coming back. Colonel Mitchell is with me. We need a med team right away."

"I will tell him," Teal'c says.

Sam reaches out, then pulls her hand back, afraid to touch. “How are you doing?” she asks gently. “Can you walk?”

Cam gives her another one of those weary, beautiful smiles –- that’s one question he’ll never get tired of answering. “You bet.”

He manages to stand up okay, but after that she has to sling his arm about her shoulders while she slips her other arm about his waist so she can shuffle along beside him. He leans on her without shame, his head lowered and his eyes closed, trusting her to guide him forward.

She chooses her steps with care.

****

The debrief at the SGC is brief but heated; there are a lot of fingers to be pointed, a lot of unanswered questions. When they've gone as far as they can with their limited information, General Landry sends them all away. "You're all on leave for three days, starting now." He gives Sam a hard look. "And that's an order."

"There's just a few things I need to wrap up first in the lab," Sam says. "I could—"

"Delegate them to Dr. Lee and the other scientists," General Landry orders. His tone makes it clear he will tolerate no arguing.

"Yes, sir," Sam says.

When he's gone, she looks at the others. "Well, I guess I'm going home." Though she's exhausted and ready for a real shower in her own bathroom, the prospect of going home feels about as appealing as going to the dentist.

"Guess so," Daniel says. He looks about as thrilled at this prospect as Sam does.

"I shall return to Dakara," Teal'c says. "Perhaps someone there can provide some more information about the aliens we encountered at the alpha site."

Sam looks at Vala, wondering if she even has anywhere to go. In turn, Vala looks questioningly at Daniel, then back at Sam.

"Ah, she's coming with me," Daniel says. He only flushes a little as he says it.

Vala looks at Sam, the unspoken question in her eyes. With Cam in the infirmary, leadership of the team falls to her.

Not like she would say no, or deny them. Daniel and Vala are not military; the rules against fraternization do not apply to them. And even if they did, well, Sam expects she would turn a blind eye. She's happy for them, for this second chance they've both been given.

"Okay," she says.

****

She arrives back at the SGC the next morning, dressed in civilian clothes, carrying a paper bag. Like the running joke about Cam's black thumb, the cookies have become one of their things, something no one else would understand.

He's in one of the smaller, private rooms off the main infirmary. When she walks in, he's sitting up, frowning down at a mission report. Probably her own, since she's the only one who ever writes reports of any real substance. He looks better today, though he's still battered and bruised, and a row of stitches forms a dark line above one swollen eye.

"Hey," she says.

"Hey," Cam says. "Thought you were on leave."

"I am," Sam replies. She puts on her most official voice. "I am here strictly as a visitor."

"Ah," Cam says. He eyes the bag in her hand. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Could be," Sam says with a grin. She sets the bag down on his bed. "How are you doing?"

"A little tired of always ending up in here," Cam grumbles. "But hey, I've had worse."

She gives him a commiserating smile. Sooner or later they all end up in here; it's part of the job. But he does seem to wind up in the infirmary more often than any of them.

"Well, lucky for you I know just what will cheer you up," she says. She nods at the brown paper bag.

"Yeah," Cam says. "Maybe not right now, though."

"Go on," Sam says. She pushes the bag across the cotton blanket draped over him. "You know you want one."

"All right, you got me," Cam says in a resigned voice.

Proudly Sam plops the bag onto his outstretched hand. She watches him reach in and pull out a cookie. She waits as he bites into it, anticipating the hum of satisfaction, the contented smile.

None of that happens. Cam swallows the bite of cookie and looks up at her. "Great job."

Sam's smile falls as the truth hits her. "You don't like it."

Cam hesitates, then shakes his head. "I'm sorry, Sam. But I think we may have finally found the one thing you're not really good at."

She's hurt and embarrassed all at once – and a little bit angry that he didn't have the guts to tell her this after she brought him the macaroons the first time, after Marrick beat him so badly on the _Odyssey_. "Well, I'm sorry," she says, a little too loudly. "I've never really liked baking cookies. You're lucky you got them at all."

"Sam, don't," Cam says. He puts the half-eaten cookie back in the bag and sets it aside. 

"How come you didn't say anything last time?" she says. She's really glad now he's in a private room, so no one else can hear this.

"I really appreciated the gesture," Cam says. "I didn't want to hurt your feelings."

It's a little late for that, but Sam knows she should let it go. So her cookies are terrible. So what? It's no big deal. She isn't much of a cook, and she knows it, but it's not difficult. Like science, there is procedure to be followed, materials to be measured, order to be maintained. Given a recipe to follow, she does just fine. 

But apparently something as simple as baking is beyond her.

Belatedly she realizes that this is probably how Cam felt when she rejected his offer of macaroons after she was shot by the Ori soldier. "It's okay," she says. She gives him a smile that's only partly forced.

"I really did appreciate it," Cam says. "And anyway, what did you mean, you never liked baking cookies? How can anyone not like baking cookies?"

Sam hesitates. She's never told anyone this story before, never thought she would. Slowly she sits on the chair that has been left thoughtfully beside the bed. She gazes at her clasped hands for a moment, then she looks him square in the eye, fully aware of how ridiculous it all sounds to someone who doesn't know the context of what she's about to say. "I have bad memories of a day when I was baking cookies for someone."

Cam just stares at her, clearly puzzled and waiting for an explanation.

"That's what I was doing," Sam says, "the day my dad came home and told me my mom had died."

Instantly Cam's expression softens. He looks guilty and sympathetic at the same time. "I didn't know that."

"Well, now you do," Sam says. She musters up a smile, drags her hands apart, and gestures to the brown paper bag full of the cookies she made. "So you should _really_ appreciate those now."

Cam winces. "I do," he assures her. "I really am sorry."

She waves off his apology. He couldn't have known, and it's not like she was really upset, anyway.

"I used to watch my grandma bake cookies," Cam says. He gets a far-off look in his eyes. "Before she got sick. She loved it, was always the first one to volunteer for the church bake sale, that kind of thing." He smiles a little, remembering those long ago days.

"She used to tell me the secret to making a really great cookie was to add two extra ingredients. They weren't in any recipe, she used to say, but they would always make your cookies turn out amazing. She said to add half a teaspoon of water and a little bit of love in every batch you made."

He gives Sam a look that manages to be both sheepish and proud at the same time. "I guess it's kind of silly, but I have to say, it's never let me down."

Sam isn't sure what to say to that. Is he saying he added a little bit of love to those macaroons he made for her? How the hell is she supposed to respond to that?

"Well," she finally says, "I guess you'll just have to show me your secret once you get out of here."

Cam just looks at her for a moment that draws out just a little bit too long. Then he smiles. "We'll turn you into Julia Child just yet."

Sam laughs, trying to force the tension away. She takes the bag from him and sets it on the floor. She'll give them to Siler's crew; they'll eat anything. "Wait a minute. Let's not get too crazy."

"Don't worry," Cam says. "We'll go slow."

********

_Naquadah_

 

It starts to get chilly as autumn arrives. Sam reluctantly puts her bike in the garage for the year, admitting to herself that it’s just too cold to ride anymore.

It’s around this time that she starts to notice other things too. Sam is a scientist, trained to observe. She sees things that probably no one else does. Like the way Daniel is so at ease around Vala these days, giving her faint little smiles even when she’s not looking. Or how Teal’c is a bit slower to master his impatience if their daily briefings run long. Or the fact that Cam has all but stopped going to the gym.

It’s not until the city is about to be hit with their first real winter storm of the season that Sam figures it out. She wakes up that morning with a dull throbbing in her leg, the one she broke in Atlantis. She sits on the edge of her bed massaging her aching leg, cursing the fact that she can't shake off the pain the way she would have when she was younger.

It’s the change in weather, of course. And she isn't the only one affected.

The morning's briefing is a quick one; they don't have a mission scheduled until tomorrow, and that's all depending on the data the MALP sends back. General Landry dismisses them after only twenty minutes, and they all stand up to go. Vala is already chattering away to Daniel, who is focused on the files he's holding. Teal'c's attention is on the gate, visible through the windows.

Sam is the only one who sees Cam catch hold of the table edge as he rises.

She pays more attention after that. She's probably the only one who knows why Cam's temper is shorter these days, his easy good nature less and less on display. She's surely the only one who notices that he doesn't go running anymore. On their next two missions he sends her ahead on point instead of doing it himself, which isn't all that unusual -- except she is certain that she's the only one who understands the real reason why.

She intends to keep it that way. She just wishes it wasn't necessary in the first place.

****

Winter has been on them for six weeks when she has the startling inspiration on what to do. It's a miserable day outside, wet and blustery, though deep in Cheyenne Mountain it's as temperate as always, and most people still walk around in their shirt sleeves. Sam's leg aches, a dull weary pain that sometimes not even drugs can touch.

And if she's feeling like this, she can only imagine what Cam is going through, how much misery he is in.

She waits until the end of the day, timing it so she catches Cam as he's leaving the locker room. "Hey," she says. "Got a sec?"

"What's up?" Cam asks. They fall into step beside each other, walking down the hall. And she can see it again, the stiff gait, the way he tries to hide how much his back is killing him.

"I kind of need your help with something," Sam says. It's a bit of a cheap shot, but she knows full well that he can't refuse her.

"What do you need?" Cam says.

She doesn't slow down, doesn't do more than glance at him. The device in her pocket seems ridiculously large; she can't believe he hasn't noticed. "Actually I was hoping we could go to your quarters? I don't really want an audience for this."

Cam's eyes widen briefly, but he nods. "Sure. Okay."

"Thanks," Sam says. She's unaccountably nervous and her palms feel sweaty.

They don't talk again until they're secure behind the door to Cam's quarters. Like all the personal rooms on base, they're small and utilitarian mostly, meant for those days when travel to and from their homes just isn't practical due to their schedules, or when the weather is so bad no one is supposed to be on the roads. Sam's tried to liven hers up with some artwork and a few plants (including Minnie the thriving African violet), but there's not much that can be done with concrete walls.

"So what's up?" Cam asks again.

"Well," Sam says, "you know how Teal'c brought some of that Goa'uld tech to us a while ago. I've been studying them when I get the chance, because they're all things I ought to be able to use." She pauses. "In theory."

Cam nods. He knows all this. "Yeah."

"Well," Sam says. She takes a deep breath and pulls the healing device from her pocket. "I was hoping you'd help me out with this."

Instantly the walls come up; Cam visibly stiffens, standing straighter.

Quickly, before pride can make him refuse her, Sam rushes on. "I've tried using it a few times over the years but I could never really make it work like I wanted to." Deliberately she doesn't think about that horrible time she sat at Daniel's bedside and tried to save him. "I've never really had the time to figure it out. But I know I _should_ be able to use it. So I was hoping you'd let me try. You'd really be doing me a favor."

She's got him with that and she knows it. It's another cheap shot, a bad one at that, but it's her best strategy. And this way she lets him save face and accept her help without actually admitting that he needs it.

Cam sighs. "Damnit, Carter." He doesn't really seem angry, though. More like resigned. And that alone tells her how much he's hurting. "What do you need me to do?"

She gestures to the bed. She doesn't mind the use of her last name. She knows what it is, a way to put some distance between them, to keep this professional. Another thing to let him salvage his pride. "Just lie down. That's all. The rest is up to me."

The healing device fits her hand easily. The naquadah in her blood responds to its presence, sending a tingling rush through her veins. She knows she can make it work. She's done it before, after all. What she needs is to make it work _now_.

After a long hesitation, Cam stretches out on the bed. He moves with care, confirming Sam's suspicions –- and making her wish she had thought of this weeks ago. She tries not to look as he gets settled, granting him as much privacy as possible, and instead focuses on the device on her hand.

She concentrates on it, on that tingling in her blood, that blessing/curse Jolinar left her all those years ago. She thinks about what she wants the healing device to do. She tries to _push_ that feeling down into her hand, into the very metal of the framework fitted around her fingers.

There is no "on" button, no physical way of powering up the device. Either she makes it work or she doesn't. She just has to believe she can do it.

She glances down at Cam, seeing the strain around his eyes, the look of a person who's been in pain for too long without any real relief. She wants to help him, would give anything to go back to that day in Antarctica and spare him from that long agonizing year of injury and recovery.

_I have to do this_ , she thinks.

Cam shifts restlessly; impatient, ashamed, probably uncomfortable. Sam touches his arm briefly with her free hand, and he falls still.

The gesture takes her back, reminds her of the time she was shot by the Ori weapon on P9C-882, when she truly thought she was going to die on an alien planet. Her memory of that time is hazy, morphine and pain making her question what little she can recall. But she does remember Cam touching her like that when the Prior walked in, his fingers resting so lightly on her arm.

And she remembers something he said. Most of what he said is lost beyond recall, but she does clearly remember the last part, if only because she clung to the words the same way she grasped at survival.

_Tell yourself whatever you have to. Just believe you're going to make it, Sam._

Tell yourself whatever you have to.

Sam looks down at the Goa'uld healing device and thinks, _I know I can do this._

Warm light filters down from her hand. It lights up the space around them and bathes Cam's back in a bright glow. He doesn't move, doesn't give any indication that it's working. 

Sam closes her eyes. She has to maintain a strong focus, and it's hard. It's always been hard. But she refuses to let her concentration falter. She thinks of healing, of pain swept away by that light, of old injuries eased and forgotten. From there, though, her thoughts wander on, to memories of a hospital room, Cam looking her right in the eye. _I know what they're saying and I don't care. I'm going to walk out of here. Just you watch._

The recollection is brief, but it's enough to throw off her concentration. The wash of light from the device stutters, then goes out completely. With a sigh, Sam lowers her hand. 

Cam sits up, a bit hesitant at first, like he's not sure what he's supposed to be feeling. Then he's standing in front of her, moving more easily than before, she notices with relief. "Not bad," he says.

"It worked?" she asks. It seems like the device barely had time to do anything, and yet she feels as tired as though she's just run the obstacle course at Lackland.

"Yeah," Cam says. "I think it did."

Sam smiles. "Well, that's good news." She flexes her fingers, testing for any stiffness.

"You should definitely keep working at that," Cam says. "It's important to have someone able to use that stuff."

She nods, and pretends she doesn't know perfectly well that they're both ignoring the fact that Vala can use this tech without any of the difficulties Sam experiences.

She eases the device off her hand. "I'll keep trying. Just let me know whenever you have a minute for me. And…if you wouldn't tell anyone about this…"

Cam nods. He's got his arms crossed, clearly all too aware of what she's doing. "Will do."

"Great. Thanks." She slips the healing device in her pocket and heads for the door. She wants to ask how he's doing, to find out how bad it is, but she knows not to push it. Cam's always been pretty open before, not seeming to mind when other people see him at anything less than his best, but there's a limit to even his tolerance.

"Thanks, Sam," Cam says quietly. 

She smiles at him and lets herself out.

********

_Aether_

 

There's nothing overly special about P4C-989, but Sam is excited to go there anyway. The planet is surprisingly close to a neutron star, giving her an unprecedented opportunity to study the star and hopefully learn a few new things about those cosmic mysteries.

The people in the village nearest the stargate greet them with apprehension at first which gradually changes to a warm welcome. Mostly this is due to Daniel's diplomacy and Vala's open curiosity about their way of life; these people have a level of technology near that of the Renaissance. When they hear that Sam wants to investigate the pulsing light in their night sky, they are glad to be of assistance at first.

Until they hear Sam say that their planet revolves around the sun, not the other way around.

It all falls apart quickly after that. Charges of heresy are leveled at her, and before she knows it, Sam finds herself arrested and thrown in jail. The rest of SG-1 protests loudly and angrily, but to no avail. She will await her sentence, says the town magistrate, and that is final.

That night, of course, her team gets her out. It's not a smooth jailbreak, though, and they end up running for the stargate at a dead run. The villagers are only armed with crossbows, but they are enough. One bolt strikes Cam square in the back; Sam's heart stops when she sees, but Cam keeps running like he doesn't even feel it. Teal'c staggers and almost drops to one knee as another bolt thuds into the back of his leg. Then they're pelting through the gate, skidding and almost falling on the crossbow bolts that have preceded them through the wormhole and onto the ramp in the gateroom.

General Landry takes one look at them and orders them all to the infirmary.

There is some concern about whether Sam was hurt during the hours she spent in that alien jail, but the truth is she wasn't mistreated. In fact she's fine, and she's released right away.

Teal'c isn't quite so lucky, though Dr. Lam assures them all that the wound is clean and should heal well without any complications. Sam checks on him before she goes, but there's really no need. Teal'c is as stoic as ever and he merely says, "I will be fine, Colonel Carter, you need not worry."

She promises to visit him again later, then leaves the infirmary. She wants to get a little work in before the debrief with General Landry. She can start going over her data on the neutron star; it'll take weeks to analyze it all and she's eager to get to work.

Halfway down the hall she meets Vala and Daniel. "How's he doing?" Daniel asks.

"Well, you know Teal'c," Sam says. "He doesn't heal as quickly as he did before the tretonin, but he'll be fine."

Vala and Daniel both nod, though only Daniel can really comprehend what she just said. "Isn't it lucky about Cameron," Vala says. "That poor tac vest, though." She shakes her head in mock sympathy. "It'll never be the same again."

"He really did get lucky," Sam says, but it comes out all wrong. Her voice sounds funny. Vala's face swims before her, blurry and indistinct. 

To her utter amazement, she realizes she is practically in tears.

"Oh," Vala says. She rushes forward and envelops Sam in a warm hug. Reflexively Sam hugs her back, though she's not sure why, doesn't even really know what's happening.

"It's okay," Vala soothes. "I'd be the same way if my Daniel came so close to being hurt."

The words hang there, and all their implications. _My Daniel._

Shocked, Sam pushes back from Vala's embrace. "What? What are you talking about?" She still sounds strange, her voice too high-pitched, but at least she's no longer on the verge of bursting into tears.

Vala stares, her eyes huge in her suddenly pale face. "I only meant…"

"I know what you meant," Sam says. _My Daniel_ , said Vala, which in this situation translates into _My Cam_ , and that's something Sam can't think about, can't even bear to glance at. "But I'm not…We…" She falters, looking from Vala to Daniel and back again. Vala continues to stare at her, stricken with guilt. Daniel says nothing, but he's making that face she's seen before, that pained-looking wince when someone has said something they shouldn't have.

"I'm so sorry," Vala says.

Sam looks helplessly at Daniel, waiting for him to explain, the way he always does. He has an explanation for everything. Why not this?

"We thought you knew," Daniel says gently.

"Knew what?" Sam demands. Her heart is pounding so hard they must all be able to hear it.

Vala looks to Daniel for help and at the same time slides over a few inches so she's standing closer to him. Daniel glances at her, acknowledging her move and accepting it, while pursing his lips in disapproval. Not because she's closer to him, Sam knows. But because she's once again opened her mouth and made him responsible for explaining her mess.

"We've all seen it," Daniel says slowly, obviously reluctant to say any of this out loud. "Since Mitchell joined Stargate Command, you've been, well…happier." 

Sam just stares at them. For a moment they all stand there, Vala and Daniel looking guilty, Sam still in stammering shock.

She can't deal with this right now. She just can't.

Running away has never been part of her nature, though. She's always believed it's best to face her problems head on, to accept them, confront them, deal with them. So it's hard to be sure it's her own voice that says, "I need to go. I--I have some things I need to check on in my lab."

Daniel takes Vala by the arm. "And _we_ need to have a talk." He starts to walk away, taking Vala with him.

Vala goes, for once without protest. Just before they turn the corner and disappear out of sight, she turns around and gives Sam a tentative smile.

Sam is already gone, though.

****

Her lab is her safe haven, the one place where she can lose herself in work and forget about all those things she doesn't need to be thinking about. Today, though, she looks around at the laptops, the naquadah generators, the equipment, all those projects in various stages of completion, and none of it means anything.

She walks slowly toward the table in the center of the room, thinking about things she hasn't thought of in years. Two cadets at the Academy striking up a friendship over a physics book and their own imagined need to live up to their fathers' glory. How pleased she was when she heard he had made it into the 302 program, how she had hoped it would mean that their paths would cross more often. Her pride at learning he was the one who had saved them over Antarctica, only for the bottom to drop from her stomach when she found out how badly injured he was.

How happy she was when General Landry told her he would be the one taking over SG-1, how she had wished then that she was still at Stargate Command and not Area 51. The satisfaction of coming back, being part of the team again, having him at her side. The weeks and months of being on a team together, sharing inside jokes, smiles, moments of comfort.

Daniel is right. She _has_ been happier since Cam joined the team.

And it hits her with the force of a staff blast. All at once her legs feel too shaky to hold her up anymore. She sinks onto a stool, hardly aware she's doing it.

Oh God, how long has she been in love with him? When was she ever going to let herself realize it?

After she was shot by the Ori soldier, after those long terrible hours of pain, she had changed the password to her laptop. Not because she thought Cam would actually go in there and read her personal files, but because it was long past time for it. _Flying_ , she had typed, and she had smiled as she hit Enter.

 _We thought you knew_ , Daniel had said.

Do they all know? Does Teal'c know? Oh God, does _Cam_ know?

The knock on the door startles her. She looks up and sees him standing there, lounging against the doorframe the way he always does. Like nothing has changed.

And of course it hasn't. Except for her.

"Hey," Cam says. "You doing okay?"

"Sure," Sam says. Why shouldn't she be? Then she remembers that only a few hours ago she was being held in jail on another planet on charges of heresy, waiting to be condemned to die at the stake.

"Good," Cam replies.

For a moment they just stand there staring at each other, Cam still leaning on her doorway, and Sam starts to panic again. She has no idea what she should do. Maybe she should just say it, just put it all out there. _I love you. I think I've loved you for years. And everyone knew it but me. And maybe you. Or do you?_

"Listen," she says, because she's got to say something. "You wanna grab something to eat?"

Cam stands up straight at this. "You do realize it's almost 2200 hours, right?"

Sam blinks. In fact, she didn't. She must have been sitting here longer than she thought; she knows it wasn't that late when she talked to Daniel and Vala outside the infirmary. Most planets they visit have a daily rotation similar to that of Earth's, but even then the hours don't always sync up. Back on P4C-989 it will be the middle of the night, heading towards dawn.

"Tell you what," Cam says. "How about breakfast?"

She nods. That's better anyway. She needs some time to think, to figure out what she's going to say.

"I'll pick you up at 0700," Cam says.

Sam smiles weakly, and hopes it looks like the real thing. "Sounds good."

****

She's ready long before the appointed hour; she didn't sleep much. Incidents from the past twenty years kept playing themselves out in her mind's eye, memories of things she hasn't thought about in ages. And all of them leading to one inescapable conclusion. She is in love with someone who, in all likelihood, has silently felt the same way about her for quite some time.

It's almost March, and it's supposed to snow later today. When she opens the door to Cam's knock, right at seven, the sun is just coming up. It's cold out, and Cam is in a thick leather jacket. "Ready?"

She swings the door open. "Come on in."

She leads him inside; she debated with herself all night whether it was best to have their talk in public or not. Eventually she decided it was better to do it here, where they could be honest with each other without having to worry about other people overhearing them.

"You want anything?" she asks. "Coffee?"

"No." Cam draws out the word. He looks a bit puzzled as he follows her into the living room. "I thought we were going out."

Sam takes a deep breath. "We need to talk first."

Cam drops his head. Then he squares his shoulders and sits on the couch a short distance from her. "Is this the kind of talk where you tell me you're going back to Atlantis for another year? Because I seem to remember telling you I couldn't accept your resignation a second time."

He's joking. Or making it sound like a joke. But she knows better now. She knows he's being absolutely honest -– he's just playing it off like he'd be fine with losing her for another year.

"No," she says. "Nothing like that."

"That's good," Cam says. He keeps his tone light, but his gaze is on her, studying her, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

"Yesterday when we were coming through the gate," Sam says, "I thought you had been shot by one of the village guards."

"Yeah, good times," Cam says, but she can tell it's a reflexive response. He's still watching her closely, trying to guess where this is going.

"Not for me," Sam says. She'll never forget the way her heart stopped when it looked like he had just taken a bolt in the back. "I thought…for a little while…that I had lost you."

Cam doesn't move, but something shifts within him, some barely perceptible change. The space between them, previously easy and comfortable, starts to spark with an invisible energy. It pulls her toward him at the same time she feels a clear sense of being pushed away. _Magnetism_ , she thinks inanely, and she has to give herself a mental shake to clear her head.

She's maybe said enough already. She could just sit here and wait, let him work things out on his own. But she can't do it. They both deserve more. She has to see this through.

"I don't know when I fell in love with you," she says.

"Oh God," Cam says. He looks away, his right hand rising to cover his mouth. He shakes his head, still not looking at her. "Sam."

She doesn't know how to interpret his reaction, can't tell if he's angry or just overcome. "And I don't know why I didn't realize it before. But I know it now. And I thought you should know. You need to know."

"Sam." His voice is muffled behind his fingers.

"And I'm pretty sure I already know the answer," she says, "but I need to know how…how you feel about me."

Cam lets his hand fall to his lap. He shakes his head ever so slightly, his gaze fixed on the rug. "If you know the answer, then you already know."

Sam catches her breath. Her heart is racing, that unseen spark between them alighting in her blood and racing through her veins. So it really is true then. All those questions in the dark, lying there last night, unable to sleep for wondering.

It hits her then what this means. Ever since they started doing this together, all those shared smiles and comforting touches. Every time they went through the gate, every potentially dangerous situation, every time one of them was hurt. 

All this time, she's been in love with him, and he's been in love with her.

And how long before then? How long?

All those years they were only able to meet up for a few hours as their paths briefly crossed. All those times he let her give him plants he knew would inevitably wither and die. Allowing her to burn that community college brochure. Trusting her to keep the secret of his pain. The macaroons he baked with that special, hidden ingredient, and the way he looked at her when she said he would have to show her that secret.

He must have wondered then what she meant, if she was hinting that she returned his feelings. Only to decide, once again, that she didn't.

"Why didn't you ever say anything?" she asks.

Cam finally looks up, turning to face her with disarming honesty. "Because I decided I would rather have you in my life as just a friend, then risk chasing you off by pursuing a relationship you clearly weren't interested in."

It has the ring of something he's said before, maybe to his parents, who have known her for nearly as long as they've been friends, and who have undoubtedly asked why they weren't together. Or maybe he's just repeated it to himself, a reminder of what could never be.

And though it sounds all noble, it only irritates Sam. "How would you know if I wasn't interested? You made the decision for me! You never even gave me a chance to find out what I wanted." And how long ago had he decided this? God, _how long_? 

"Believe me," Cam says, "if I had ever seen even the slightest hint that you were interested, I wouldn't have hesitated."

"Oh, so this is my fault," she says tightly.

"Damnit, that is _not_ what I'm saying," Cam fires back. 

"Then what _are_ you saying?" she snaps.

"I'm saying--" and he abruptly stops. A lot of his confidence bleeds away then, his shoulders visibly dropping. Like it's finally dawning on him that this is the moment he must have imagined for however-long, finally here at last. 

"I'm saying, I love you," Cam says. "I've loved you for as long as I've known you."

And there it is, finally spoken aloud, the truth she had known deep inside. She must have known it for a long time, even though she hid it from herself, the same way she had hidden her own feelings for him. Even so, her heart still misses a beat to hear it said out loud.

And now she knows the answer to that awful question, doesn't she? _For as long as I've known you_ , and she can't quite process that yet, can't accept that and what it really means. All she can say is the only thing that really matters right now. "And I love you, too." She marvels how easy it is to say it. Like the words haven't been years in the making.

"But not like that," Cam says. His smile is little more than a twist of his mouth.

"Yes," Sam says softly. "Like that."

Cam just stares at her. His eyes are so arresting, so very blue, she thinks stupidly. How has she never noticed that before?

"Sam," he finally says. He blinks, and that unseen shift happens again, a galvanic charge sweeping through him, setting his eyes ablaze; he grins that wonderfully goofy grin that never fails to lift her spirits. She watches it happen, watches it wash over him, and she shivers a little as the electricity leaps from his body to hers.

This, then, is what Cameron Mitchell looks like when he is truly happy. When he finally lets himself be in love. "You... Are you sure?"

His happiness is become her own, making her want to laugh. To throw her arms around him and never let go. The truth is that she's never been more sure of anything. She had some lingering doubts about Jonas, which had made it easier to break off their engagement. It had taken her weeks to agree to marry Pete, again because she couldn't shake the thought that she was making a mistake.

But she's never doubted Cam. He's always been there for her, supported her personally and professionally. His easy friendship over the years has been one of few steady things in her life, something she could always count on. She's always looked forward to seeing him, to catching up on what was going on in their lives. She was the one to recommend him for the 302 program, and she had requested that she be the one to give him the Medal of Honor. Throughout all the years, the missions offworld, the deadly, beautiful chaos of her life since joining the Stargate program, he has never been far from her thoughts for very long.

"I'm sure," she says.

Cam just sits there, staring at her with those incredible eyes, his whole body alight. It would seem she wasn't the last to know the truth, after all.

"You better be," he finally says. He moves in closer. "And if this is all in my head and we're really just trapped offworld somewhere, I really don't want to know."

"Just shut up and kiss me," Sam orders. 

His kiss is like coming home. One hand rises to cup the back of her neck, his fingers twining lightly through her hair. His mouth is warm, his lips gentle on hers. 

She sways toward him, her arms rising to hold him close. She deepens the kiss, opening her mouth to his, their breath mingling. She wants more, so much more.

She's been waiting half her life for this.

**** 

"So what do we do now?"

They lie in her bed, the curtains drawn against the morning light. He toys idly with strands of her hair, running it through his fingers. Her head is on his chest; the air is cool on her bare shoulder but it's not uncomfortable.

I don't know," she says honestly. They will have to tell General Landry, a conversation she isn't looking forward to. The fact that they are of equal rank is a big point in their favor, but she really has no idea what the General will do.

She would like to tell the rest of SG-1 first, though. They deserve to know, to have the chance to express their thoughts and misgivings.

Although they already know, of course. They've known all along.

"I'll ask to be assigned to a different team," Cam says. "I hear SG-7 needs a new commanding officer."

Sam says nothing. She doesn't want to think about such practicalities right now. She wants to enjoy this, to lie here together, warm and cozy while he plays with her hair. She wants to rise up on one elbow and kiss him, to run her hands down his chest, to feel him grow hard against her.

"He might let us stay on SG-1," Cam muses. "If he can let Daniel and Vala stay on the same team, why not us?" 

There are half a dozen reasons why not, but Sam isn't interested in any of them. She's interested in the feel of his bare skin, the way he held her as they fell back onto the bed, the way her heart leaps just to touch him. She's interested in the thought of all the years ahead of them and what they can do to make up for all the time they lost.

"We could—" Sam lifts her head and stops him with a kiss. 

There's plenty of time to talk about it later. Right now she just wants this moment, this stillness. Years of circling each other, of laughter and tears, loss and triumph, and it all ends here, on this cold morning in March. 

"Okay," Cam says. His arm slides down to rest on her shoulders, warm and strong. Sam closes her eyes and sighs contentedly.

 _I never knew_ , she thinks, and she smiles.


End file.
